


someone to stay

by katarasvevo



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 17:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16000427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarasvevo/pseuds/katarasvevo
Summary: "I'll always come back to you."It takes five, ten, thirteen years for him to arrive at a realization.





	someone to stay

**Author's Note:**

> uhh im .. rlly ... burned out lol, anyway, here's a childhood friends au + as always, I changed up canon events + hope u enjoy

Peter is five when a family moves into the empty house next door.

At the time, he does not think of it too much. He is a little kid, so those sorts of things hold little importance to his eyes. A bunch of lame adults move in, boring. His parents want to make friends with them, Peter doesn’t particularly care. Really, there’s nothing interesting about it.

Until -

“Peter, they have a kid your age,” his mom brings it up over a dinner of unappetizing greens, smiling at him. “Don’t you want to make new friend? I bet _she’ll_ be pretty excited to meet you.”

At this, Peter makes a face, because he doesn’t understand girls, not really, but then his dad’s leaning over to ruffle his hair, and Peter doesn’t want to disappoint either of them so he decides to make the effort.

Easy peasy?

Right?

 

* * *

 

 

Well, it turns out it’s not exactly _"lemon squeezy"_ : for one, the girl is kind of quiet. Shy.

Her name is Lara Jean, and she likes to be by herself most of the time. She doesn’t really speak to Peter much, and when she does, it’s usually only a few words. Hey. Hi. What are you doing?

So the journey to friendship is rough going for the first few months, but then she opens up eventually, and soon enough they’re hanging out every single day.

Dangling from tree branches with one hand. Watching Spongebob in the afternoon. Secretly eating snacks until they’re too full to eat anything when they return home in time for either lunch or dinner.

 

* * *

 

 

Two years pass by in a similar vein, and by then they’re already at school. Surrounded by new people, new friends. Boys and girls their age.

But still they remain best friends. They remain as is.

At this point, Lara Jean has started to open up a lot more. She’s smiling lots, now. Actually initiating conversations with other people. There’s been a change, and Peter doesn’t exactly understand what it is, but.

He wouldn’t change a thing.

 

* * *

 

 

Nine. Peter has started to notice the colour of Lara Jean’s eyes, and the sway of her ponytail whenever she walks.

Ten. He wonders what Lara Jean would say if he asked to trace the dimples on her cheeks.

They’re eleven when they get put in different classes at school for the first time, and Peter joins the lacrosse team. Peter doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s the beginning of a rift. A divergence of paths.

Even when Lara Jean climbs into Peter’s room one night, deathly afraid by the stillness of her own home, and her mother’s low, persistent coughs.

Even when Lara Jean asks to stay, and Peter says yes, and Lara Jean curls up in the corner, holding back her tears.

Even when Peter whispers into her ear, rubbing soothing circles onto her back, that nothing will happen, that everything will stay the same as it has always been.

In the moonlight, Lara Jean looks like a study in silver-blue. And she’s never looked prettier, Peter thinks. Midnight eyes, dark hair, glowing skin.

Sad and heartbroken, too.

 

* * *

 

 

One day, it happens and Lara Jean’s whole world goes crashing down.

The sky's the colour of the most perfect blue when they lower Lara Jean’s mother deep into the ground. All around, the grass shines a brilliant green, the sun breaking out a soft pale-gold over the trees - such a cruel contrast to the sea of monochrome spread around the burial site.

Kitty is crying into Margot’s chest, and it’s too painful to look at the devastation on Dr. Covey’s face, and Lara Jean -

She seems frozen, completely in shock. Shaking her head, unable to accept what has happened.

Like everyone else, she is dressed in dark colours all the way up to her chin, save for her ponytail - there’s a fluttering ribbon of rose-pink dangling from her hair. Matching the brightness, the beauty of the weather.

Peter thinks he tries to gently call out to her, but before his words can register Lara Jean is gone.

Running somewhere far away.

 

* * *

 

 

After that, they don’t talk much anymore.

Lara Jean takes to isolating herself. She doesn’t speak up anymore unless it is strictly necessary. She buries herself into schoolwork. Around her the world turns, quick to move on, but Lara Jean stays.

Peter is careful to give her the space that she needs. The comfort that she might want. But it seems that Lara Jean has started to push him away, disappearing into a place where he cannot reach her, cannot call out to her.

Peter wants to go back to the way things were. Before any of this happened.

But time is linear. It only ever goes one way and never the other, so it is impossible to rewind it back to the start.

There is only one direction.

Forwards.

Onwards.

 

* * *

 

 

_“Lara Jean.”_

“Sorry, I’m busy, Peter.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Peter is fourteen, his dad leaves them - him, and his mother, and his little brother Owen - and although it is not the same kind of loss as Lara Jean’s, it is loss nevertheless, and Peter feels it acutely. Everywhere, in the traces that his dad left behind.

A chipped mug. A dent on the couch. Photographs all around the house. Lyrics of songs they used to belt out during long car rides.

“Peter,” Lara Jean says to him one day when she finds him sitting out back, staring dully at an old, rusty basketball hoop standing pointedly besides his mother’s garden.

Then Lara Jean’s mouth twists, like she has something else she wants to say, but Peter cuts in with, “I don’t want to talk about it,” and that’s the end of that.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter doesn’t know if they’re truly friends anymore, because they haven’t been on speaking terms for a while, but then with lacrosse and homework and other people in the picture he doesn’t have much time to ruminate about their friendship’s fragile state.

Occasionally, they’ll exchange glances, but never enough, never _long_ enough to leave a meaningful impression.

It is like they are back to square one, back to the very beginning.

Peter tries to forget, though. But he can’t, not when his mind will always come back to the way Lara Jean’s hair shines bright in sunlight.

The way her eyes seem to hold stars when it’s late at night.

The way she once held his hand and called him home.

 

* * *

 

 

The beginning of junior year, there’s a girl and her name is Gen.

For the first few months, he thinks he likes her. She’s pretty. She’s outgoing. It’s easy to be around her, although it’s difficult, trying to maintain what they have going on; she makes it clear that she has expectations of him.

They aren’t exactly hard to live up to, but that’s the thing. She shouldn’t have any.

It’s tired, faking it, trying to be the man she wants him to be like she’ll leave if he doesn’t, so one day he just stops pretending altogether. And it turns out alright; she leaves, not before flat-out telling him they aren’t ever getting back together.

And for a time after that, Peter thinks he wants her back, but then he realizes it’s a different kind of wanting from the one he’s always felt. Here, it feels like longing for an idea, a mere concept, and not the actual thing.

But with Lara Jean …

Peter shuts his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

One day, they start talking again. Him and Lara Jean.

He doesn’t know how it happens exactly. But one moment they’re saying hello to each other, and the next they’re holding a conversation. If Peter focused hard enough, he could almost pretend like they’re back to old times.

Almost.

 

* * *

 

 

Their time at high school is about to draw into a close, and soon enough they’ll be off, heading into new stages of their lives.

And during the last few weeks, Peter is sorry he arrived at a realization a little too late.

But there’s no going backwards.

 

* * *

 

 

A week before graduation, Peter decides to muster up the courage to say the words he should’ve revealed a long time ago. So he takes in a deep breath. Heads out into the backyard where they first made a pact with each other.

And somehow, somehow, Lara Jean is there, too, looking like she is heading his way.

They stop at the same time, waiting for the other to speak up.

And then they’re both saying I’m sorry, enveloping each other with a hug, and Peter’s mind returns to the first memory of Lara Jean re-creating shapes onto his palms and tracing his lifeline.

“Don’t you dare say goodbye,” Lara Jean says, her arms around him tightening, and then Peter says, “How about I love you, instead?” and at this Lara Jean hugs him back even tighter. To the point where Peter thinks she’ll never let him go.

“How long, Peter?” she asks softly.

“Years and years,” Peter says, and Lara Jean says, “I love you, too, but please don’t wait,” and then Peter says, “I know, but I’ll always, always come back to you.”

It took Peter five, ten, thirteen years to realize that, but at least he finally knows.

And when their mouths meet, Peter’s whole world grows warmer than sunlight.

 


End file.
